Polaroid, a company best known for its instant cameras and maybe for hiring Lady Gaga as their Creative Director, will be entering the gaming industry soon with a wide variety of video games accessories. These would mostly be peripherals for popular gaming system such as a microphone headset and battery packs for the Xbox 360, wireless controllers for the PS3, sports packs and a sensor bar for the Wii, as well as a dock for the Nintendo DS. → Read More
Lost iPhone prototypes aside, most Apple leaks tend to come from partners companies tasked with helping to build something Apple needs for a particular product. After all, Apple can’t do it all, itself. Well, not yet anyway.
A report today in the New York Times confirms earlier rumors that Apple has purchased Austin, Texas-based chip company Intrinsity. And yes, it appears that company is the one largely behind the new A4 chip found inside the iPad. An analyst put the price at $121 million, but again, he’s an analyst, so who knows. → Read More
It seems Japanese companies are releasing 3D displays on an almost daily basis. Yesterday, we reported about Toshiba’s 3D HDTV, and today Panasonic Japan announced [JP] two new 3D plasma TVs for their VIERA line-up, the TH-P65VT2 (65 inches) and the TH-P58VT2 (58 inches). → Read More
You know news is tight when the words “Prepped for shipping” warrant their own post. However, the iPads 3G are now “prepped for shipping” which means they should be winging their way to the US in the next few days, just in time for the April 30th cut-off date. → Read More
Have you seen Lady Gaga’s new music video with Beyonce, launched on Vevo and YouTube last month? The one that mixes busty blonde babes with Wonder Bread, Miracle Whip, Virgin Mobile, and a host of other brands? Troy Carter, Gaga’s manager who helped put together this video, will be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt next month. Carter will join Google President and head of Business Development Nikesh Arora, Facebook product head Chris Cox, Google’s VP of engineering Vic Gundotra, and other executives at Disrupt to discuss our core themes of what’s now in content creation, distribution platforms, and –everyone’s favorite — monetization of media. Disrupt will take place May 24-26 in New York City at 570 Washington.
There’s still time to get our early-bird discount for Disrupt if you grab a ticket before Friday. → Read More
After all the police raids and legal musings, the next-generation iPhone that Apple engineer Gray Powell lost in a bar will likely reappear at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference, which the company today announced will take place on June 7. It is widely expected that Apple will officially unveil its next iPhone, the iPhone HD or whatever it will be called, at the event.
Yup, the one with the front-facing camera for video chat, bigger battery, better microphone, and retro 70s Braun stylings. Maybe there will be some surprises left. → Read More
Remember Sony Japan’s unusual promotion campaign for an 8-inch netbook (or ultra-mobile PC, as the Japanese like to call these devices) from December 2008? The target group was amused with the campaign. And it appears the marketing coup helped Sony actually sell the Vaio P, as the company today updated its Japanese site with yet another teaser for yet another “mysterious” netbook. → Read More
The itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot, Vodafone 845 has just become official in the UK.
The device, manufactured by Huawei and running Android 2.1, measures the merest of 100 x 55 x 13 mm. → Read More
Klout, a startup that measures influence on Twitter, has secured $1.5 million in Series A funding from a number of investors, including Allen Morgan of Mayfield Fund, ff Asset Management, Bobby Yazdani, Nova Spivack of Lucid Ventures, Zelkova Ventures, Paige Craig, Tom McInerney, Michael Yavonditte of Quigo Technologies, and Ofer Ronen.
Klout, which recently released a new API, evaluates Twitter users’ behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals and topics around the web. Since the company’s launch in 2008, Klout has registered over 250,000 users and over 300 API partners, including CoTweet, HootSuite, and the newly-launched Tweetup, and is handling millions of API calls a day. → Read More
You’re an outdoorsy type, aren’t you? You only read mobile-phone blogs on your down-time between hiking and BASE jumping. I can tell.
Being that you are that wonderful blend of outdoorsman (or outdoorswoman) and phone aficionado, I bet you’re often peeved about the whole lack of power outlets in the wild (I know I am). Well, well, looky here, someone out there has heard your cries.
Sagem are soon to release their solar-powered, puma-branded feature-phone to the masses. How do we know that? Well, it’s just gone and had it’s first photo shoot with the FCC, that’s how. → Read More
On Tuesday, Apple announced that late last month, they closed a deal to acquire Intrinsity — the Texas-based chip maker responsible for the A4 chip used in the iPad.
Word has it that Intirinsity cast the voodoo that allowed the A4 chip in the iPad to clock up to 1Ghz without destroying battery life. → Read More
Online media company Internet Brands (aka INET) today announced the acquisition of ExpertHub, a network of websites that connects consumers with attorneys and other professionals. The network will get folded into the company’s Money and Business vertical.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it is perfectly in line with Internet Brands’ growth-through-acquisition strategy. The INET CrunchBase profile lists 10 small purchases in the last 3 years alone, and its portfolio of brands is currently 100+ strong. → Read More
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11266224&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1 Nokia N8 first HD video sample from Nokia Conversations on Vimeo. After a heady excoriation of the N8 based on pre-release hardware surfaced this week, it looks like Nokia is trying hard to convince us that the N8 is still the phone to beat. → Read More
On their Facebook page today, US Cellular today teased an “around July” release for the HTC Desire (previously known as the Bravo).
The device, in case you didn’t know, is basically a Nexus One in Sheep’s (or HTC’s) Clothing (which includes Sense UI), but with a few differences. → Read More
It’s done. AOL has officially sold instant messaging service ICQ to Russian investor DST for $187.5 million. In a release, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said “As AOL continues its turnaround effort, we’re fortunate to find a great home for ICQ with DST.”
Rumors of ICQ’s possible sale were first reported last November. We’d heard speculation that Naspers was interested last year but dropped out of the bidding process. Back in December, we also heard Google and Skype were interesting in buying up ICQ. The final price falls below AOL’s rumored asking price of around $200 to $250 million. → Read More
AOL just released its financial results for the first quarter of 2010, reporting another drop in total revenues.
If revenue dropped 17% year-over-year in the last quarter of 2009 compared to the same period a year before, its total revenues for the past quarter were down a painful 23% compared to the first quarter of 2009.
AOL has disclosed that it has sold ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies for $187.5 million in cash, and that it is still considering a sale or shutdown of social networking service Bebo this year. → Read More
I just got out of a Yahoo! press conference in London where I got an opportunity to talk briefly with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.
The topic on everyone’s lips was Yahoo’s rumored talks with Foursquare, so I asked her what she thought of TechCrunch’s advice to the location-based startup: don’t sell out to Yahoo!.
Bartz’s response: “It depends how much money they want.”
Listen to the full audioboo below. → Read More
Garmin-Asus today announced their second Android-powered phone, the A10 (for reasons unknown, they’re seemingly not calling it a nuvifone).
Just like the nuvifone A50, the device aims to be a pedestrian navigation device (as in, for pedestrians, not a boring navigation device), and will come with Garmin’s navigation software and maps pre-loaded. → Read More
Steven Frank Unboxing the iPad The iPad POS system, coming soon to a restaurant near you Review: Energizer Recharge Smart Charger Close the Internet, we’re done: The 4-port chicken burger USB hub CrunchGear meetup this Thursday in Lexington, Kentucky → Read More
Tremor Media is already the largest online video ad network in the U.S., and the company says it’s been profitable since 2009. Now the company just closed a large $40 million series D financing to accelerate its product R&D and expand into “other media channels” (TV perhaps?).
The round was led by the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund, with some money coming from DFJ proper and Triangle Peak Partners. Previous investors also put in more money, including Canaan Partners, European Founders Fund, Masthead Venture Partners, Meritech Capital Partners and SAP Ventures. This round doubles the total capital Tremor has raised since launch to almost $80 million. → Read More
